Suffolk Christian Academy junior Hannah Fagan has been far more than just an experienced pitcher for the school’s softball team; she’s been a genuine teacher and role model for her teammates. In the program’s first year back since Fagan played for it as an eighth-grader, she has also put up impressive numbers as a pitcher and batter on her way to becoming SCA’s first-ever Player of the Week.

Re-starting a program at any school is bound to have its challenges, but Suffolk Christian head coach Robbie Lester has a roster of players from sixth-graders to juniors, most of whom are softball novices. Some young people may be inclined to shrink from a leadership role in favor of focusing on their own play, but Fagan actually enjoys the task.

“I’ve been kind of a leader growing up when I played travel ball, but these girls are so young, I just feel like they kind of look up to me, and I want to be a good example for them, for them to follow as they grow up,” she said.

Her parents, Fred and Becky Fagan, have felt a mixture of pride and humility at their daughter’s focus on others during the season.

“She’s proud of these girls,” her father said. “They didn’t know what first base was, half of them, when they first got here. When she comes home from practice or a game, she’ll talk about how the other kids did, not about how her game was. “

He summed her up by saying that “she’s got a good foundation in her faith and her school and her family. So, it all works together. She’s a well-formed human being in my opinion. Couldn’t be prouder.”

Fagan got her start in softball playing T-ball in the Suffolk Youth Athletic Association.

“We started Hannah at 5, and she got an award the first year for being the one that would sing her way around the bases,” her mother said.

Ross House was her first coach and Lester also coached her at SYAA, where she excelled and proceeded through the ranks.

“I played there for a while, and then I played travel ball for about four years for Southside Sting,” Hannah Fagan said. “And then I started playing for school the first year we had a team, and it’s been a couple years.”

With Southside Sting, now known as the Sting Fast Pitch Organization, she learned from Randy Carr. Fagan does not play travel ball currently, however, because of a desire to help out Suffolk Christian.

“She decided the school needed her on various teams because of their size, and she couldn’t do (travel ball) and support the school, so she goes from playing volleyball to basketball to softball (at the school),” Becky Fagan said.

While school plus sports is generally a full plate for many student-athletes, Hannah Fagan also does amateur horse showing on weekends, performs volunteer work at a ranch and has a job at Nansemond River Golf Club.

Of the sports she plays, softball is her favorite.

“I want to do my best, I want to show the other girls that they can do it too,” she said. “I just love getting out there and playing and my main motivation is to give it all to God, give it all to my parents, show them what I can do, and make them proud.”